More
by KT the Shimmer Skank
Summary: Larry went to a party expecting an ordinary evening, and got just a little bit more. [oneshot]


More--

Rating: PG-13 for sexual situations and a brief reference to alcohol

Disclaimer: I do not own nor make a profit from Lizzie McGuire or the song "Here In My Room" by Incubus.

Dedication: Never done one of these before, but this fic is for Lane, who is perhaps the only person who gets this pairing as much as I do.

Author's Notes: I feel it nessecary to point out that I have never liked romance or fluff and that still holds true. The reason I find this song so beautiful is because it is a love song that is completely real and fluff-free. Incubus is brilliant like that, you see. I tried to make this as un-romantic as possible, but I don't know that I've done the song justice. Oh well. Hopefully some of you will get it anyway. And, by the way, I **highly recommend** listening to the song as you read, since aside from being a totally brilliant song, it really sets the tone of the story.

Update: The lyrics have been removed, though I wish it weren't so.

o o o o o o

My immediate thought as I walked through the house was, "This has got to be a fire hazard." The McGuire house was so small, and yet there seemed to be at least fifty people crammed from the front door to the kitchen. The sheer physics of it was mind-boggling. So many bodies moving together to the heavy beat of the stereo, completely in rhythm, like the tide of the ocean. Being slightly tall gave me the advantage of being able to peer over the crowd. I skimmed the faces but recognized none of them in particular. I'm sure I knew every single person in there, but pressed so close together like that it was hard to distinguish anyone. I realized how much they all looked the same.

I found it very difficult to part the waters. Sweat accumulated on my forehead, and I started feeling suffocated. "Excuse me," I said. "Pardon me." I tried to force my way through the crowd. Some of them glanced at me for a moment, but rolled their eyes and turned away again, completely unwilling to move. They scowled at me for trying to throw off their groove. They looked at me as if I was a fool to just stand there instead of falling into rhythm and dancing like the rest of them. It is never easy to swim against the tide.

I was not a dancer by nature. Oh, sure, I enjoyed good music. They Might Be Giants, Daft Punk, Utada Hikari... I could enjoy a swell beat or two. But to create movement to such beats was a concept I couldn't exactly get into. My body had never been my greatest tool. I was not an athlete or a musician or a romancer. But what I lack in physical grace and aesthetics, I make up for in mental stamina. Give me a challenge of the mind, and I will not fail you.

I made it half-way through the living room, in that endless sea of people, and I stopped when I saw a face that easily stood out from the rest. She must have seen my anxious glance, for she stopped there with me in the middle of the pulsing crowd.

"Hi, Larry," she said, brushing aside her bangs in that familiar way. "I'm glad you could make it."

I smiled. "I'm just glad you invited me, Lizzie." I glanced around us. "This certainly looks like a happening affair."

Lizzie blushed and shrugged. "It's gotten a little crazy, huh? I didn't expect this many people to show up." Her forehead wrinkled slightly as her lips curled into the faintest shadow of a frown. "I'm totally worried about what my parents will say. I don't think they had this many people in mind when they said I could throw a party." The crowd was closing in on us, and I could see her grow visibly uncomfortable because of it.

"Oh, but your parents are so cool," I reassured her. "Remember sophomore year when I blew up half your garage? They barely got mad at all! Even if I did have to work as a janitor in your dad's office to pay for it..."

A soft laugh fluttered from her lips, and she smiled at me warmly for a moment. The perpetual motion and vibrations of the music and the people seemed completely frozen. The volume of her smile drowned out everything else. But then she was gone, in a flash; she'd been called away, she'd apologized, I'd said goodbye, but it all happened so quickly that I was swept up in motion again and left slightly dazed by it all.

Once Lizzie had walked away, I felt as though the evening was basically over for me. That was all I'd come here for, to get a glimpse of that smile and stimulate my vestibulocochlea nerve with the warmth of her voice. It had never even occured to me to want more. That was not the kind of bond we had. We were there for each other, through those awkward and fun moments we shared, and though I sometimes found myself quite fond of her presence, I never presumed that I needed or even wanted more than her smile.

I worked my way back through the crowd and climbed the stairs up to the landing, where there weren't as many people. I leaned against the railing and watched the party from above. They weaved, circled, and shook just like bacteria under a microscope, dancing and multiplying and infecting. I realized that it wasn't chaos at all. They were all on the same frequency, tiny parts of one big dance. A single heart beat in all of them. Funny how it all made sense from far away, yet when inside of it I could only feel overwhelmed.

A beefy hand was thrust hard and fast on my back, and my breath caught in my chest. "What's the matter, Tudgeman?" barked a slow and obnoxious voice. "Are you too cool to party?"

"Yeah, too cool to party, Tudgeman?" another voice echoed stupidly. I turned and saw two bulky, nameless jock-types standing behind me. Their breath wreaked of alcohol and they stood unsteadily.

"Gentleman," I said, greeting them. I lacked the patience for speaking on their level of intelligence, but I faked a cheery disposition for their sake. Showing these kind of hooligans that you were distraught only encouraged them. "I was just observing the party."

They exchanged a glance and snickered drunkenly. "_Observing the party, _eh? You can't just observe it, Tudge, you have to get _in _it."

I was taken quite by surprise when the two guys grabbed hold of me, lifted me up and over the railing, and dangled me over the crowd. My stomach lurched as I saw everything swimming below me. I was held up by only the thin material of my t-shirt and the less-than-trustworthy hands of two intoxicated high school boys.

"Heh, very funny guys," I said, hearing the high-pitched fear in my own voice. "Now put me back please." I swallowed hard and closed my eyes. I could hear laughter all around me; not just from the two boys, but from almost everyone in there.

"Aw, don't worry Tudgy," one of them taunted. "We won't let you fall! Besides, these guys'll catch you, won't you guys?"

The crowd below laughed and shouted in response.

"P-please... Let me go," I begged.

"What's that? You want us to _let go_?" I felt slack in their grip and I screamed, thinking I was going to fall. They laughed hysterically.

It was awful. "Please! This is just stupid, guys. Please let me go!"

This may have gone on for quite awhile, if Gordo hadn't appeared and talked the guys into stopping. With a bit of reluctance, they pulled me back over the railing and walked away to find amusement elsewhere. Gordo stood there with an invisible smile, waiting for the thank-you that I seemed to owe him.

"Uh, thanks, Gordo," I said weakly. I did not want to look him in the eye. Yes, I was thankful, but my gratitude was tainted with a taste of bitterness. Gordo and I got along fine so long as we were equal. There was an unspoken competition between us, in many aspects, and I always felt unsettled whenever the scale tipped in his favor.

"No problem," he said with a friendly smile. "Are you okay and everything?"

"Oh, yes. Don't worry about me. I'd, uh, better be going though. I just realized I forgot to set my VCR to tape tonight's Red Dwarf." Gordo stared at me with a puzzled expression as I waved and quickly left him.

It had been a pretty lame excuse; I mean, as if I would forget to tape Red Dwarf. But I just wasn't up to talking with Gordo just then. His presence was a damper on my ego. Since when had Gordo suddenly been so above me? I wondered. The answer came to me: since high school started. It was around freshman year that Gordo acquired his new confidence, his new identity, and somehow had gained the upper hand in our friendly rivalry. I seemed to stay the same in high school, though this by no means was a bad thing. I was happy with who I was, even if others weren't. And there was one thing Gordo hadn't managed to gain in high school: Lizzie. As long as he didn't get her, I managed to keep my jealousy of him to a minimum.

I walked out of Lizzie's house and found my car, at which point my emotions plummeted. They had absolutely ruined it. Garbage, spaghetti, wet toilet paper, shaving cream, toothpaste, and several other unidentified substances covered my entire vehicle. I could barely recognize it with all the vandalism. I wondered if they knew, when they decided to play this prank, how hard I worked to save up the money to pay for that car. How long it would take me to clean all of this up. I wondered if the thought had even crossed their minds, whoever they were. I felt tears prickle harshly in my eyes.

"Oh, Larry, I'm so sorry," said Lizzie's shocked voice behind me. I turned and suddenly lost the desire to cry once I saw her standing there. She placed her hand on my shoulder and stared with me at the disaster that had become my car. "I saw those guys messing with you... And I saw you leave so I..." Her voice was heavy with guilt, as if it was her fault that there were jerks in the world. "I'm really sorry about your car. And those guys. Are you okay?"

I put my hands in my pockets and smiled. "Oh, yeah. I'm fine," I said, even though I wasn't fine at all. The last thing I wanted was for Lizzie to feel sorry for me, even if most of the time her sympathy was her only reason for taking notice of me. It was probably the only reason she'd invited me to her party; because she'd felt so sorry for me. But that was okay. Because I'd gotten what I came for, and the rest didn't really matter.

She didn't look like she believed me. "How about I give you a ride home?" she offered, looking up at me.

I nodded, and a few minutes later I was sitting in the passenger's seat of Lizzie's little purple Jetta. Her stereo was on low as we drove, but it was not loud enough for me to distinguish the particular artist. I stared at the reflections of the streetlights in the window while Lizzie talked.

"Oh, I can't believe Jake and Justin," she was saying, shaking her head. I assumed she was talking about the two jock fellows. "I just hope they were drunk _before_ they came to the party. If my parents found out that anyone brought drinks to the party... I'd be grounded for the rest of my natural life!" She sighed and brushed her bangs out of her face again. She glanced over at me, laughed briefly, then focused back on the road. "I guess that's what I get for trying to throw a big party. I just knew something would go wrong."

"It was fine," I reassured her. "Everything was fine."

"You think so?"

"Absolutely. It was definitely on my list of top five parties."

We laughed together, though I'm not sure if Lizzie really understood why it was funny. Not that it mattered. We were alone together, and like always, that was a good enough reason to be happy. That's what I truly believed, even if laughter was the only thing that would ever be between us.

She pulled in front of my house. "Are you going to be okay?" she asked again, biting her lip.

"I'll be fine," I told her, which of course was a lie again. "Thanks alot for the ride. I'll come by sometime tomorrow to collect my vehicle." She nodded and waved as I unbuckled my seatbelt. I leaned in and placed a kiss on her cheek, as if this was a common custom between us, then climbed out of the car without waiting for her reaction and walked to my front door.

I went upstairs to my room, where days worth of dirty laundry and half-baked science experiments greeted me emotionlessly from the floor. I stepped over the messes and collapsed onto my bed. I took the time to exhale especially slowly, hoping the burden of my emotions would creep out with my breath.

I was alone in my room. Glow-in-the-dark stars and science posters stared down at my lonely self. I clutched my Dwarflord-print pillow and sighed, for try as I might to think of other things, all that filled my mind was her face.

Yes, I wanted more. It killed me to admit it, but sometimes I got swept up in my feelings, and I wanted to be more than just Lizzie's favorite geek. Things like that can't be helped. Desire cannot be rationalized. In my mind I knew that we didn't need to be more, that we couldn't be more, that she had probably never even considered being more. In my mind I knew that things were perfect just the way they were.

But my mind was not my own tonight. It was bathed in images of Lizzie, and I was lost in her.

I heard my door creak open, sat up in bed, and my breath caught in my chest. It was her, though I didn't understand why. At first I didn't think she was really even standing there, but after a moment of awkward quiet, I realized otherwise.

"Lizzie? What are you doing here?" I asked, clearing my throat as I spoke.

She didn't say anything. She shut the door and looked down at her hands, clasped together. I waited with a confused expression. My heart and mind were racing a thousand miles a minute, but her silence caused me not to say a word. She walked over and sat down beside me on the bed, still looking down.

Why wasn't she saying anything? Didn't she realize how maddening it was that she was here, in my room, in the place of my most private thoughts, without any excuse or explanation? "What about your party?" I asked, still not knowing what she was up to.

She only shook her head in response, as if the answer couldn't really be vocalized. She exhaled shortly, a small laugh almost, then at last looked up at me. Still, she had no words for me. All she did was smile. Weakly, perhaps, but it was the form of communication I understood best from her. She placed her hand on my shaking hand and kissed me. Slowly, softly, meaningfully, I received her kiss.

I was shaking all over, uncontrollably. I was so scared. Scared that this was a joke, or a mistake, or just a dream all together. In my mind this was a grand fantasy, but in actuality it was a frightening and awkward experience. What if she didn't like the way I kissed? What if she could feel how nervous and afraid I was?

We kissed. Wonderful, splendid kissing, for an immeasurable amount of time. She broke away. She looked at me. She pulled off her shirt. She looked at me. She was bare and vulnerable before me, and I exhaled. This felt strangely wrong; the light shouldn't have been on, allowing me to see her so clearly. There was no barrier, no boundaries, none of the usual taboos between us. She was here, and everything was out in the open.

I removed my shirt. We looked into each other's eyes, though not to catch a glimpse of our emotions or even to gloss over the moment with the expected cliche. In truth we were too embarrassed to really look at each other. Pale, young, child-like bodies. Completely unbeautiful. I really wanted to ask her why she'd come here, but the vacuum-like silence between us told me that questions and comments were not permitted.

Silence. Motives and desires and thoughts were present but unspoken, the way they had always been between us. There was nothing but breathing and sweaty palms and uncertain glances. I felt grateful, then, that neither of us had the guts to speak, because logic would have ruined it all. We had never questioned our understanding of one another or our unspoken agreement to help each other out along the way before, so why begin now?

I was thankful that I didn't have to know or care why she came to my room. I could just be selfish as I took her in my arms and claimed her as my own, for the moment. It was meaningless actions that meant everything. It was just Lizzie, my friend, like always. But with a little bit more.


End file.
